Joe McAndrew, Author at Transportation For America

T4A Advisory Board Member testifies before Congress on the power of passenger rail as an economic catalyst

The success of Uptown Normal’s (IL) multimodal station as a catalyst for redevelopment was center stage as Normal Mayor Chris Koos testified before the House Oversight Committee last week.

The Town of Normal is located on the 284-mile Chicago-to-St. Louis passenger rail corridor, which received federal support to increase service, reliability and speed (up to 110 miles per hour). Additional federal support was paired with state and local resources to build a brand new multimodal station to replace an old, dilapidated Amtrak station in downtown (they call it “Uptown”) Normal, Illinois.

That new multimodal station has been the anchor of a new economic boom in Uptown Normal. (Read T4America’s more detailed profile of Normal’s can-do aspirations and the multimodal station here.)

While years of tireless work by local officials to make the station a reality were fundamental for success, it wouldn’t have happened without support from federal transportation programs.

That support primarily came through the U.S. Department of Transportation’s TIGER grant program. The House Committee on Oversight’s Subcommittee on Transportation and Public Assets, in its role as overseer of the federal government, held a hearing on July 14th titled Lagging Behind: the State of High Speed Rail in the United States to cover the success and failures of the federal high-speed passenger rail program.

Normal Mayor Chris Koos is seated at the far right of the dais. Photo courtesy of Brad Tucker, CHG & Associates.

Mayor Koos joined the witness bench alongside Federal Railroad Administrator Sarah Feinberg, and others. While there were a range of opinions about the overall success of the federal government’s high-speed rail program, everyone in the room made it clear that our nation’s passenger rail system is an important asset for this country and we should do more to improve and expand the network where appropriate.

The “only Normal mayor in America” was greeted with friendly introductions led by his hometown Representative Rodney Davis (R-IL) and the ranking member of the subcommittee, Tammy Duckworth (D-IL). Rep. Davis has firsthand knowledge of the success of Uptown Normal station and its surrounding development, as his congressional district office is located in the Uptown Normal government building.

T4America advisory board member Mayor Chris Koos with Representative Rodney Davis (R-IL) at last week’s hearing.

Transportation-oriented development has been integral for Normal as the city “has experienced growth, but a lot of that growth has been centered around the infrastructure,” cited Rep. Davis.

None of this would have been possible without a $22 million TIGER grant received in 2010. The previous station was inadequate and ill-equipped for the ridership demand, leading to the station’s unfortunate moniker of “Amshack” that was bestowed upon it by many residents over the years.

This all changed with the completion of Normal Illinois’ Uptown multimodal station in 2012. All told, the $49.5 million project received $22 million from TIGER, $10.6 million in additional federal funding and more than $13 million in state and local contributions.

The public funding has spurred significant private investment in the Uptown Station area.

“Thus far, public investment of approximately $85 million in federal, state, and local monies in the transportation arena has generated over $150 million in private investment in the Uptown district,” Mayor Koos told the subcommittee last week. An additional $45 million in private investment is planned.

“Uptown Normal is now a vibrant neighborhood with residential, commercial, and entertainment opportunities. Local transit ridership is up 34 percent and transit oriented development continues to abound,” Mayor Koos said.

Normal’s success doesn’t have to be so rare.

Predictable funding for TIGER and passenger rail programs provide great economic benefit for cities large and small. The FAST Act took great strides by including the passenger rail title in the transportation authorization for the first time. Yet, because these programs are entirely discretionary, their funding is in question every year during the annual appropriations fight.

Mayor Koos provided the House Oversight Committee a glimpse into what is possible with a strong federal, state, local and private partnership, and we hope the members of the committee will work across the aisle to provide more communities the opportunity to follow in the transportation footsteps of Normal.

T4A Advisory Board Member testifies before Congress on the power of passenger rail as an economic catalyst

The success of Uptown Normal’s (IL) multimodal station as a catalyst for redevelopment was center stage as Normal Mayor Chris Koos testified before the House Oversight Committee last week.

That new multimodal station has been the anchor of a new economic boom in Uptown Normal. (Read T4America’s more detailed profile of Normal’s can-do aspirations and the multimodal station here.)

While years of tireless work by local officials to make the station a reality were fundamental for success, it wouldn’t have happened without support from federal transportation programs.

Normal Mayor Chris Koos is seated at the far right of the dais. Photo courtesy of Brad Tucker, CHG & Associates.

T4America advisory board member Mayor Chris Koos with Representative Rodney Davis (R-IL) at last week’s hearing.

Transportation-oriented development has been integral for Normal as the city “has experienced growth, but a lot of that growth has been centered around the infrastructure,” cited Rep. Davis.

The public funding has spurred significant private investment in the Uptown Station area.

Normal’s success doesn’t have to be so rare.

Senate Appropriators Prepare for FY2017 THUD Introduction

On Friday, April 15, the Senate Appropriations Committee announced they will introduce and mark up the annual FY2017 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies (T-HUD) the week of April 18. This announcement comes on the heels of the release of top-line funding levels for all 12 annual appropriation bills, including T-HUD.

The Senate FY2017 funding allocations does not include any of the more than $50 billion in new mandatory spending proposed in the President’s FY2017 budget request. However, it remains consistent with the amounts approved in the 2015 Balanced Budget Act.

The Senate allocations total $1.07 trillion in base funding and $74 billion in funding for Overseas Contingency Operations. Under the subcommittee breakdown of these totals, the T-HUD funding allocation is $56.474 billion. This represents an $826 million decrease compared to current FY2016 funding at $57.3 billion. (See allocations for all subcommittees here). Senator Susan Collins (R-ME), chair of the T-HUD subcommittee, has indicated that the housing side of the T-HUD bill should include “some offsetting receipts that help us from the federal mortgage insurance programs” and thinks this will provide for solid funding levels.

During the release of the funding allocations on Thursday, April 14, Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), ranking member of the full committee, thanked the committee for the expeditious way that appropriations are moving forward and remarked that the allocations were ‘fair but snug’. She also expressed hope that all of the 12 appropriations bills would continue to move forward in a timely manner and in line with three principles: (1) adhering to the 2015 Balanced Budget Act, (2) ensuring parity between defense and non-defense spending, and (3) without any poison pill riders. There were a few comments that the budget process needs improvement, but overall the allocations were agreed to 29-1 with the dissenting vote made by Senator Jerry Moran (R-KS).

The House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-KY) announced on April 13, 2016 that House movement on appropriations will be slow due to House Republican leaders who continue to disagree over the FY2017 budget. Representative Rogers noted that the House Appropriations Committee may still produce funding bills totaling $1.07 trillion, but approval of funding allocations will be done one by one for each bill as they advance out of subcommittees. However, no House spending FY2017 bills will move to the floor without a budget or a waiver.

Oregon DOT provides a wake up call for local leaders in other states

In a move that should raise alarm bells for local leaders in other states, last week the Oregon Department of Transportation decided where to spend nearly $200 million in new money from last year’s FAST Act on their road system with limited to zero public engagement.

I-5 over the Columbia River in Oregon. Flickr photo by Doug Kerr.

The FAST Act, the five-year transportation bill passed by Congress in late 2015, provided a level of funding certainty for state transportation programs that they’ve not had in years. Thanks to a $70 billion transfer from general taxpayer funds into the Highway Trust Fund, the FAST Act also provided a slight increase in funding for each state. This followed on the heels of $75 billion in transfers total over the prior seven years, just to keep the trust fund solvent.

Yet simply funneling more money into the same system won’t necessarily ensure better outcomes for the taxpayers’ investment or that local priorities will be addressed, and Oregon’s actions could be a preview of what might happen in countless other states, deciding not to equitably distribute the new funds to state and local priorities.

Rather than improve the underlying policies that directs each state’s transportation investments, Congress chose to largely direct the FAST Act’s increased funding into new freight programs, the largest of which is being distributed to states by a formula wholly unrelated to freight needs or merit. (This was one of the provisions we called out in our post covering ten things to know about the FAST Act. –Ed.)

This new National Highway Freight Program will dole out more than $1 billion per year to state DOTs with zero relation to the value or tonnage of the freight moved within its borders. It also predetermines that the solution to any freight problem is highway-related by directing all but 10 percent of each state’s funding to highway development only, disregarding the fact that these funds were not collected from gas taxes.

In addition, the increase in funds in the main highway programs are also directed largely to state DOT owned roads (interstates and highways). Thus, local governments must be prepared to ensure their priorities are addressed and the states share in their newfound resources, however large those may be.

Case in point: Oregon.

As Bike Portland originally reported back on 3/17, The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT), with the approval of its Transportation Commission, programmed $196 million in new funding from the FAST Act on Thursday, March 17. While ODOT is correct that the majority of its new funding is from the highway freight formula program, the agency has misinformed (pdf) their audience by stating the funds must be allocated to “freight-related projects on high-volume, high-priority truck freight routes, primarily the Interstate.”

Congress provides ODOT, and every other state, great flexibility to direct federal highway dollars to priority projects — state or local, highway or non-highway. Every state has the flexibility to transfer 50 percent of its funding for a highway program to a separate highway program such as the highly flexible and locally accessible Surface Transportation Program, which can be used on almost any type of important project.

While nearly 40 percent of the additional $200 million in Oregon will support fix-it-first projects – a priority that Transportation for America supports —95 percent of the new funding will likely go to state-owned highways and almost nothing is done to improve transparency and accountability for the public. To wit: the list of project types receiving funds does not provide a discussion or rationale for which projects will receive the new funding or why any particular project category received funding.

The murky process of picking projects in a way that is nearly impossible for the public to decipher will continue.

ODOT will not begin spending the nearly $200 million in newly programmed funds until 2018, which provides Oregon’s local leaders two years to build their case to receive a greater portion of the new funding from the FAST Act for their priorities.

But today and tomorrow, Oregon’s example illustrates why local leaders in other states need to proactively engage their state representatives and DOT to ensure their state’s new funding from the FAST Act is shared and supports both local and state priorities.

Click here to review the amount of highway funding directed to your state DOT from the FAST Act

USDOT announces funding available for the new FASTLANE freight and highway grant program

Last year’s five-year FAST Act transportation law included a new freight program for the first time (see this section under “A one-size-fits-all freight program“) and the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) has announced that the first round of $800 million in competitive grants is open for business.

Last Friday, USDOT released a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for the new competitive grant program for freight and highway capacity projects, created in last year’s FAST Act.

The Nationally Significant Freight and Highway Projects program includes a dedicated competitive freight program totaling $4.5 billion over the life of the five-year FAST Act, with $800 million available in FY2016. The department has renamed the program and it’s a mouthful: The Fostering Advancements in Shipping and Transportation for the Long-term Achievement of National Efficiencies (FASTLANE) grants.

Last week’s FASTLANE funding notice outlines the FY2016 discretionary competition structure and criteria being used to measure applications. Full applications are due by 8:00 PM EDT on April 14, 2016 and should be submitted through www.Grants.gov.

Transportation for America has summarized the NOFO for our members. Download the members-only summary here (pdf).

While Congress’ FAST Act legislatively limits Secretary Foxx to using the majority of this program’s funding for highway-only capacity improvements for freight, there are still possibilities to think outside of the box. The grant program does indicate a determination to support projects that reconnect communities torn apart from interstate development, such as capping highways.

Beth Osborne, T4America’s Senior Policy Advisor, and Michael Rodriguez, AICP, Director of Research for Smart Growth America, will provide an informative session discussing both the FY2016 FASTLANE and TIGER grants program for T4America members on Thursday, March 4 at 4:00 pm EST. Register for this members-only webinar here.

President Obama releases robust final budget; summary included

Today, the White House released President Obama’s fiscal year 2017 (FY17) budget proposal, the final of his presidency. This budget adheres to the $1.07 trillion spending cap that resulted from the bipartisan two-year budget deal agreed to last November. The President’s budget proposal either falls in line with or exceeds FAST Act funding levels, increases transit and rail funding, and funds TIGER (the FAST Act does not authorize the program), among other programs. The budget also calls for the creation of a 21st Century Regions program, a clean communities competitive grant program and funds the President’s 21st Century Clean Transportation Plan.

Speaker Ryan (R-WI) has asked congressman to maintain the funding levels agreed to last November, though there are signals that some may seek additional cuts.

Read a more detailed analysis here.

The 1 thing you need to know about President Obama’s clean transportation plan

On February 4, the White House released President Obama’s 21st Century Clean Transportation System plan to be included in his FY2017 budget proposal expected out on February 9. The President asserts that his budget proposal will strengthen the nation’s transportation fund through one-time revenues from business tax reform and a $10 per barrel fee on oil, and make large investments in transit and improve funding for local and regional governments.

“This is a new vision. We’re realistic about near-term prospects in Congress, but we think this can change the debate,” one senior administration official said.

The announcement comes two months after the passage of the 5 year surface transportation bill known as the FAST Act. However, Congressional leaders have not expressed willingness to consider the proposal.

House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) made this point clear. “President Obama’s proposed $10 per barrel tax on oil is dead on arrival in the House.”

What the plan proposes

The plan includes a wide range of innovative solutions. It would refocus federal investments to reduce congestion, reform the existing transportation formula programs, and invest in competitive programs, including the popular Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) program. It would also increase investments in mass transit funding by $20 billion annually, provide $2 billion for an autonomous and low-emission vehicle pilot, and add $10 billion per year to reform local and regional transportation programs. The latter would include new discretionary grant programs for regions that lower emissions and better link land use decisions with transportation investments.

To pay for these investments, revenues from a $10 per barrel fee paid by oil companies would be phased in over 5 years. During the development of the FAST Act, Congress was unwilling to even hold a floor vote on increasing transportation user-fees, which hasn’t been raised in over 23 years.

USDOT proposes to remove restrictive design guidelines that make safer streets more difficult to build

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) took an encouraging and surprising step, proposing to ease federally-mandated design standards on many roads, making it dramatically easier for cities and communities of all sizes to design and build complete streets that are safer for everyone.

This proposal is open for comment, and FHWA is waiting to hear from the public.

Send a letter of support to FHWA

These outdated federal guidelines get in the way of better street design, but FHWA is proposing to scrap many of them. This is indeed great news, but for these changes to go ahead, FHWA needs to hear that they have strong support for the proposed changes.

Join us and generate a letter to FHWA today. We’ll be delivering your letters in person to FHWA all at once before the December 7th deadline.

Currently, FHWA has a long list of design criteria that local communities and states must adhere to when building or reconstructing certain roads, unless they choose to go through an arduous process of requesting an exception to do things like line a downtown street with street trees, reduce the width of lanes to add a bike lane, or curve a street slightly to slow traffic and make it safer for people in cars and on foot.

In this new proposed rule, FHWA decided after a thorough review to scrap 11 of 13 current design criteria for certain roads because they decided these criteria have “minimal influence on the safety or operation on our urban streets” and has a stronger connection for rural roads, freeways and higher speed urban arterials.

This new freedom for local planners and engineers would cover all roads on the National Highway System (NHS) with designed speeds under 50 mph. This covers most of the non-interstate roads and highways running through communities of all sizes that are built with federal funds, like the typical four-lane state highway through town that we’re all familiar with, perhaps with a turning lane on one side. Incidentally, many of these roads are among the most unsafe for pedestrians.

In FHWA’s own words, this move will “refine the focus on criteria impact on road safety and operation” and “encourages engineered solutions rather relying on minimum, maximum, or limiting values found in design criteria.”

In our words, this move will liberate local communities that have been working hard to make their roads safer for everyone that uses them, and rid them of the need to petition FHWA for exceptions to do exactly that. It’s a win for the movement for safer and more complete streets and also a liberating change for transportation engineers, especially those that have been working hard with their planners and elected leaders to bring innovative, safer street designs to their communities.

Since these controlling design criteria were first established in 1985, any project that didn’t meet all of the minimum design standards had to receive individual approval from FHWA. This was done on a project-by-project basis and added time and difficulty for those wanting to create safer roads. Now, for these NHS roads under 50 mph, engineers will only be required to attain design variances for just two criteria – design speed and structural capacity.

Today’s proposed rule follows on the heels of FHWA’s summer release of the Bicycle and Pedestrian Funding, Design, and Environmental Review: Addressing Common Misconceptions that addresses 10 misconceptions that often prevent or slow construction of safer roads. This is a valuable resource that will help local governments, metropolitan planning organizations and civic leaders improve the safety of our roads by debunking misconceptions ranging from the pots of money available for bike and pedestrian projects to explaining that FHWA rules are not the roadblock to complete street road design.

FHWA deserves praise for their leadership on this important issue. The rule is open to public comment for 60 days through December 7, 2015. Let’s take the opportunity to provide public comment and thank FHWA for their leadership and make sure it is implemented to help make safer streets for all to enjoy.

For these proposed changes to go ahead, FHWA needs to hear that they have strong support for the proposed changes.

Generate a letter to FHWA now, and urge your friends to join in. It only takes a moment.

Where did the additional billions in new revenue come from for the House transportation bill?

In the early morning hours on Thursday during negotiations over the House transportation bill, Rep. Neugebauer presented a fairly surprising amendment that tapped billions from a to-date unmentioned Federal Reserve surplus account to help cover the cost of the bill.

Details are still a little uncertain about exactly how much money will eventually be transferred from this account — House leadership could hang on to some of the money for some other need and choose to only fund three years of their transportation bill — we’ll be keeping a close eye on how that develops. But we do know that the House now has as much as $85 billion in new general fund revenues to cover the gap between what the gas tax brings in and current levels of transportation spending.

From his speech, even Rep. Neugebauer (R-TX) agrees with our assertion that we shouldn’t be filling the trust fund with non-transportation revenue sources (i.e., general taxpayer funds). So what was the reasoning for tapping this Federal Reserve fund in this amendment? One reason was to eliminate one of the Senate’s funding sources that many did not like. Here’s the speech that Rep. Neugebauer gave on the floor in the early morning hours of Thursday when most of us were all fast asleep.

First, I don’t think it’s good policy to fund transportation from other sectors of the economy.

This amendment does seek to address two major issues in the budget offsets sent over from the Senate: the Federal Reserve dividend reduction and the ‘G-fee’ increase. Moving forward with the Federal Reserve dividend reduction without studying it could have a devastating consequence for the supervision of the financial sector and the stability of the Federal Reserve system. The cost that banks, especially community banks, could face as a result of the dividend reduction would be passed on to hard working consumers. At a time when many Americans continue to struggle from the unintended consequences of Dodd-Frank it would dangerous and irresponsible to move forward with the Senate version.

Second, this amendment addresses what I see as a further entrenchment of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. This is particularly timely because just this week we learned that Freddie and Fannie may need to tap the Treasury once again and saddle the taxpayers with the bill. This amendment further protects the taxpayers. Allowing Congress to continue to raise g-fees will make comprehensive housing financial reform impossible.

Our amendment addresses both problems by liquidating and dissolving the Federal Reserve Capital Surplus Account. The Federal Reserve Capital Surplus Account currently has about $29 billion in capital surplus. This Account is made up of the earnings that the Federal Reserve has retained from investing member banks money. Let me say that again. The Surplus Account is made up of the earning that the Federal Reserve has made from investing member banks money. The Federal Reserve continues to hold this account in surplus at a time that our nation has over $18.5 trillion in debt.

This is not a perfect policy but it’s better than the alternative. This preserves the budget neutrality of the transportation bill and counters irresponsible proposals sent over to us by the Senate. Further, it protects consumers from the potential for cost increases while reforming the Surplus Account to meet the needs of the current fiscal crisis. When the Surplus Account was created no one could have imagined the debt and deficits that we are facing. It is appropriate to liquidate this account to meet these days’ realities.

“Moving forward, I hope that this body will ensure that transportation funding comes from transportation users and not completely unrelated sectors of the economy.

Federal update: Path clears on a short-term deal to avoid government shutdown

Though all federal funding expires on Wednesday, September 30, 2015, Congress appears poised to avoid a government shutdown and extend current funding levels through December 11, 2015. The U.S. Senate may pass a continuing resolution (CR) spending bill tomorrow with House passage expected the same day. What will happen between now and this new December 11^th spending deadline is less clear in light of Speaker of House John Boehner’s (R-OH) unexpected retirement announced last Friday.

Here’s our members-only look at what you need to know from Congress related to transportation funding & policy.

Short-term outlook

As reported last week, Senate Appropriations Chairman Thad Cochran (R-MS) introduced a CR proposal to provide funding through December 11, while also providing $700 million for wildfires, extending Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Authorization through next March, and restricting funds to Planned Parenthood. The Senate failed to pass Senator Cochran’s proposal on a 47-52 vote with 7 Republicans opposing the bill.

In response, the Senate removed language pertaining to Planned Parenthood as well as the FAA authorization from Senator Cochran’s proposal. The Senate tied his CR proposal to a House-passed bill (H.R. 719, the TSA Office of Inspection Accountability Act of 2015) to speed passage out of Congress. The Senate plans to force consideration in the near-term with a procedural move called a cloture vote this evening. If the cloture vote is successful, the Senate will vote on final passage late Tuesday. Outgoing Speaker Boehner has indicated that he plans to bring up the Senate’s version of the CR for a vote on Wednesday before the fiscal year 2015 expires at midnight.

Long-term outlook

The good news is that in this scenario, the federal government will remain open on Thursday, October 1 — a markedly different outcome than many expected last week. However, Congress has a full docket of pressing matters to deal with between now and the end of the year: including a modified FY16 budget that many hope will ease federal sequestration spending limits and include an omnibus spending package, tax extenders, a federal debt limit increase and extend the positive train control implementation deadline.

The House Republican Caucus will also hold leadership elections to replace outgoing Speaker Boehner and the remainder of the leadership team. Most believe current House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) will receive the necessary support to become Speaker, but he is expected to receive opposition from Congressman Daniel Weber (R-FL), among others. Many Capitol Hill observers are starting to look beyond the Speaker election to the expected campaigns for majority leader, whip and conference chair, and whether or not members from the House Freedom Caucus will receive any of these posts.

Speaker Boehner has indicated a desire to achieve much prior to his retirement, stating “I don’t want to leave my successor a dirty barn.” One item not yet addressed is House action on a multi-year transportation authorization. The House Transportation & Infrastructure (T&I) Committee is awaiting transportation funding levels from the Ways & Means Committee before T&I introduces and marks up their version of a surface transportation authorization. House action on a multi-year transportation authorization may very well be sidelined through the month of October due to the expected budget process coupled with House Republican leadership elections.

As always, we will update you as more information comes available.